


The Final Wall

by AprilFool



Series: The Final Wall [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Abstract, Death, Dreams and Nightmares, Drug Abuse, Drug Use, Fear, Horror, House - Freeform, Labyrinth - Freeform, M/M, Mind Palace, Monsters, Near Death Experiences, Overdosing, Psychological Horror, Rooms, Sherlock's Mind Palace, Stream of Consciousness, Synesthesia, haunted
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-04
Updated: 2017-05-04
Packaged: 2018-10-28 02:29:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10821864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AprilFool/pseuds/AprilFool
Summary: Traumatic events cause Sherlock to take drugs again. He seeks shelter in his mind palace which has turned into a bleak house. It seems like someone or something has invaded it.Sherlock has to face not just his worst fears but also his final problem.





	The Final Wall

**Author's Note:**

> This is kind of a draft. Maybe I will edit and rewrite it in the future. For now it is what it is.

It rains. Rain keeps me alive.  
I feel every single drop. One two three on my forehead. Too cold. Too monotonous. One two three. The same distance hands touch on clock faces. One two three.  
What is the next number? I can’t remember. But I know that there are more numbers than just one two three.  
I open my mouth and let it rain inside me.  
Are my eyes open or closed? Do I watch the drops falling? What is this lightning in my mind? It sends my brain into shock. It stops working. My brain never stops working.  
One two three. One two three.  
There it is again, a weak little thought. What am I thinking? Why am I thinking?  
There is something wrong this time.  
My body is one black mess. My brain is frost nipped. From the rain. Why does this rain feel blue instead of black and grey? Black snowflakes now.  
Wrong. _Wrong!_  
I am in a vacuum. Am I in space? I am alone. That is one last thing I know.  
One two three.  
One two three.  
One two three.

 

_Beep beep beep._  
A red sound.  
Red and pink in my veins. It burns. I assume that I have my body back. At least there are blood vessels.  
My brain’s wintriness is gone. But in a way it is still bleak.  
  
The door is open. I never leave the door open. I run inside, make sure to lock the door behind me, and the red sound stops.  
I take my first breath. The air is ligneous and a bit dusty. Calming. I am home.  
I need to find out what is wrong with my body. So I walk into the kitchen. The kitchen has always been a clean and bright room. Windows face east so the sun always begins its journey where I start most of my visits as well.  
Today the kitchen lays in darkness. I stop at the door frame, cautious. I inspect the room. The tiles are dirty. In the bowl on the kitchen counter all my apples are rotten to death. Even the flies lay dead beside what was once fruit.  
Drip drip drip.  
The tap is broken.  
I step back into the hallway. No one has the key to my mind palace. No one but me, obviously. But when I’ve come here a few moments ago the door was already opened. Who has opened the door? Who has made this mess in my kitchen? Who has hidden the morning sun? Anxiety hits me. I am too curious for anxiety.

I whirl around and run up the staircase. A crack. I stumble. I reach out for the handrail. My fingernails scrape the metal. I hit the broken wood underneath me. I lay there, one two three stairs covered by my body. I feel a splinter in my left ring finger. Red, again.  
I pull myself together. What is wrong with the stairs? I look at the wood. I blink and then I see them. Anobium punctatum. Common house borer. What caused them to invade my staircase? I am not a person who kills creatures without reason. But now I do. Beetle after beetle dies under my hands. My skin becomes raw from the broken wood. Liquid from the squished insects wets my palms.  
I wipe my hands on whatever I wear. For the first time I notice that it’s my blue morning robe that hangs from my body. In addition to that I am dressed in a grey shirt and pyjama bottoms, both cotton.

Carefully now I climb the last stairs until I reach the second floor. I want to turn on the lights but the switch does not work. The big window which usually brightens the walls is covered by red curtains that are not mine.  
I stare into the corridor and the corridor stares back into me.  
  
There are three rooms on the left and three rooms on the right wall. They are even in size, number of windows and colour of wallpaper. All except one. The last room on the right wall is different. Different from all the rooms in my mind palace. It is locked four times. The key is lost.  
Nevertheless. The door has been opened ajar.  
I gasp.  
I shudder.  
I stare.  
Glooming fear crawls through my neural system. This door cannot be opened by anyone. This door has to keep closed under any circumstances. This door is not allowed to even exist anymore.  
But there it is and here I am.  
  
Something touches my bare feet. I am alarmed. More insects, I think. I don’t look down.

There is a movement on the wall, _in_ the wall. I glaze in horror while featureless faces form inside the walls around me. They press their heads into the wallpaper that stretches around them.  
Wrong, so _wrong!_

I touch my temples with my fingers, close my eyes.  
_Think, think!_  
I can’t have any hallucinations inside my mind palace. I can’t have any dreams inside my mind palace. There can’t be any intruders inside my mind palace.  
_And yet they are._  
Hallucinations dreams intruders, hallucinations dreams intruders, hallucinations dreams intruders -  
_Stop!_  
There is no time to pull the brake. My thoughts start running, flooding, overwhelming.  
  
There is another touch at my feet. A motion.  
I need to glance now.

First fingers, then hands, then arms.  
They lurk inside the cracks of the wooden floor. They break the panels apart. They burst from the darkness beneath my feet. They crawl over the ground. Just fingers, hands, arms. Radius and Ulna, no Humerus. The fingers make tapping noises while they dart around. With incredible strength some fingers hold the whole arm up, others just drag the arm.  
It is fascinating. It is amazing, in some way or another.  
But it is something else.  
_Wrong._

When the first finger nail scratches my ankle I start running, fleeing.  
I stamp on them and bones crush. The heads in the walls start to scream in a high pitched voice.The arms belong to them, I realise. But where are their legs, their torsi?

I reach the door. The door I have never wanted to open again. The door that has been locked four times.  
I cannot see the room behind it yet. I cannot enter this room. My whole body trembles. My _mind_ trembles.  
I reach for the handle but I am too scared to touch it.  
Instead the arms reach me again. They rear up. They want to climb my shins.  
I still think about accessing the room.  
I fold my hands over my lips.  
There is a _plop_.  
Something has fallen from the ceiling.  
Another plop and another and soon it hails.  
I look at the balls that spring over the floor. They look back at me.  
It is hailing eyes.  
_This is not real, this is not real, this is not real_  
_Not real not real not real_  
_Not not not_  
_Real_  
The arms reach my upper legs now. They claw into my skin.  
I know that when I enter the room I will be safe from them. But in this room there lurks something much bleaker than those creatures.

In the wall next to the door a head stretches the wallpaper to the utmost. The material rips. The head is free. A blank face stares at me.  
_Fascinating_.  
How is that even possible? How is all of that possible? This is _my_ mind palace, I am in control here.  
I am not.  
_These pictures are not occult, but they are psychic because everything that emanates from the human spirit or human brain is psychic._  
These are not my words, not my thoughts.  
Too late I notice that the face has come closer. It is just centimetres away from me, gapes into me without eyes. But I feel the stare and I feel something behind that mask.  
There is still inquisitiveness left in me.  
The face rips open and reveals something that makes me scream.  
I have no time to think anymore.  
I grab the handle, I bolt into the room. The door shuts behind me, I hear the sound of the lock. Four times.  
One two three  
_Crack_


End file.
